Vacation Offer

To whom it may concern,

I would like to bring the company XXXXXX to your attention and report them as a scam.

Last November, I received a brochure in the mail with holiday offers to go to Florida or Mexico, for 50% off coupon if I get someone else to go with me. I called the customer service number on the back of the brochure talked to a really nice sales agent. I gave her the coupon number and she said I was definitely eligible to go with six of my friends at a discounted price. I was so excited, and told her I would need to call all my friends to discuss it and finalize dates. The sales agent said unfortunately the coupon was a one-time offer, so I texted my friends right away. They all thought the price was great, and so we agreed on a date. The agent asked for my credit card number for a deposit of $300 per person.

A few weeks later I received my package in the mail and was really excited to get the tickets. But when I opened up the envelope, all that was in it was a contract telling me I’ve made a deposit on six locations in Mexico, but the dates we had requested were not available.

I was given several options to pick from, but all of them were much higher than the price quoted originally. The contract also said that since I’ve made the deposit and verbally agreed to the conditions, I was required by law to either complete the transaction or lose the deposit if I don’t go through with it.

I’ve never been in any legal trouble, defaulted on any bill payment and I didn’t want to have a bad credit record if this company came after me. It sounded like they had all the evidence needed to show that I agreed to these vacations and there was no way out.

I didn’t want to tell my friends that we had been scammed, so I decided to tell them that the dates we requested not available. Since it was my fault they got involved in this scam, I decided to keep the secret to myself and secretly lose all the money on the deposit. At $300 a person, I’m quite confident that I won’t be taking any vacations any time soon.

Several months later, I did some research and found out that this was a pretty popular scam with lots of victims falling for it almost every day. I learned about several different options when dealing with these types of companies, but the best thing I could have done was to just toss the initial brochure. I wish I knew that when I first picked up the phone to call them.